Method of effecting the successive advance of laminated sheets.



B. ADRIANGE & A. OALLESON.

METHOD 01-" EFFEGTING THE SUGCESSIVE ADVANCE 0F LAMINATED SHEETS. APPLICATION FILED DEO.30,1911.

1,096,522. Patented May 12,1914.

3 SHEETS-SHEET 1..

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' ATTORNEY INVENTORY,

B. ADRIANOE & A. OALLESON.

METHOD OF EFFEOTING THE succsssrvr; ADVANCE OF LAMINATED SHEETS.

APPLICATION FILED DEC. 80, 1911.

1,096,522. Pa ented May12,1914.

3 SHEETS-SHEET 2.

B. ADRIANGE & A. OALLESO METHOD OF BFFECTING THE sucozssrvn ADVANCE OP NATED SHEETS.

APPLICATION FILED DEC. 30, 1911.

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May 914.

HEETB- BET 3.

WITNESSES Y INVENTORY z W M M W UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

BENJAMIN ADRIANC'E AND AMOS CALLESON, OF BROOKLYN, NEW YORK; SAID CALLESON ASSIGNOR TO SAID ADRIANGE.

METHOD OF EFFECTING THE SUCCESSIVE ADVANCE OF LAMINATED SHEETS.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented May 12', 1914.

Continuation of application Serial No. 444,272, filed July 18, 1908. This application filed December 30,

To all whom it may concern Be it known that we BENJAMIN A.DR1- ANCE and Arms CALLESON, citizens of the United States. residing in the borough of Brooklyn, in the county of Kings and State of New York, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Methods of fecting the Successive Advance of Laminated Sheets, of which the following is a specification.

This application is a continuance of our application for Letters Patent filed July 18, 1908, Serial Number 444,272.

The invention relates to the planiform advancement and separation of stacked sheets or plates, and particularly (1) to the breaking down of adhesion between two adjoin ing sheets when one, due to such adhesion. responds to advancing action directly applied only to the other; (2) to the shaping of each sheet so as to ofl'er a holdthereon, and thereon only, to the advancing medium; and (3) to the nature of the advancement, with a view to secure certain economies where the sheets as they are fed or advanced are acted upon by a gang of two or more dies disposed in a certain arrangement.

Referring to the accompanying drawings, Figure 1 is a semi-diagrammatic view illustrative of our invention; Figs. 2, 3 and 4 are views illustrating in detail the way in which adhesion between two adjoining sheets is broken down, so that the lower or positively advanced sheet will move forward leaving the other sheet behind, Fig. 2 being a side view, partly in section, Fig. 3 a front elevation of what is shown in Fig. 2, the sheets being omitted, and Fig. 4 a view like Fig. 3 with the sheets included; Figs. 5, 6 and 7 are views illustrating in detail the way in which each sheet is shaped so as to offer a hold thereon, and thereon only, to the advancing medium, Figs. 5 and 6 being side elevations of certain parts, with the sheet appearing in section, showing the shaping operatlon at two stages thereof, and Fig. 7 a cross section on the linear-m of Fig. 6; and. Flg. 8 1s a diagrammatic view illustrating the manner of effecting the advance of each sheet.

In illustrating our invention in the drawings we have shown means for supporting a stack of sheets or plates at one side of a suitable barrier, a gang of three dies at the the stack.

Serial No. 668,800.

other side of the barrier, a suitably actuated rack reciprocating horizontally below the stack of sheets and adapted to advance each lowermost sheet in the stack step-by-step under the barrier to the dies, and means whereby the lowermost sheet is drawn with: in the control of said rack, these several elements being common to that class of machines which are'typified by a machine for forming bottle caps and the like from sheets or plates advanced successivelyfrom a stack. a is the said support; b the barrier; c the stack of sheets reposing on the support at one side of the barrier; (Z a gang of three dies carried by the support at the other side of the barrier; e a rack arranged to reciprocate in a slot f in the support; means for reciprocating the rack; and It means (such as a suction device) for drawing the tail end of the lowest sheet (marked 1) down into the control of the rack.

The presence of adhesion between sheets or plates in a stack is well known seriously to embarrass the planiform advancement from the bottom of the stack, one and one only at a time, of the sheets in The expedient usually resorted to to effect the successive advance of the sheets is a barrier adapted to allow only the lowermost sheet to advance, holding back all the others; but such a barrier will not of course be effective in securing the advancement of the sheets one and one only at a time if, as often occurs, the combined thicknesses of two adjoining sheets in the stack is no greater than that of the sheet which the barrier is supposed to letpass, or if (unless the barrier be adjusted) a stack of sheets of one standard of thickness or gage follows another stack of a different standard of thickness or gage.

We have ascertained and by actual practice have demonstrated that, substantially regardless of variations in the thickness of In Figs. 1 to 4:, the surface of the support a on which the stack of sheets rest is shown flat except near the barrier where, as at 2', it appears convex in cross-section. The lower edge of the barrier is curved to the same radius, as at y, so that the sheet out-' let is an arched slot 70. If two sheets should enter this slot, the lowermost one positively subject to the action of an advancing medium, such as rack e, and the other simply responding to the advancing action because the latter is transmitted through the adhesion between the two sheets, the lateral for? ward portions of both will be diverted from the paths of advance which they would otherwise follow, the incidental bending of the sheets producing resistance to such ad vance; and, such resistance being opposed, with respect to the lowermost sheet, by the positive advancing medium, and, with respect to the second sheet, only by the adhesion medium between the sheets, it yields to the first and overcomes the second, allowing the lowermost sheet to go forward while holding back the next sheet. In order that the sheets thus involved may become subjected to this separating action it is preferable to flare the mouth or entrance sideof the slot k, as at Z in Fig. 2, so that they will enter the slot.

Each sheet is advanced by the rack e with a recess in its top surface, the bottom as of which is inclined upwardly relatively to the direction of forward movement of. the rack. When the lowermost sheet is to be advanced device h pulls the tail end thereof down against the bottom m of these recesses, holding it there until the rack makes its next forward movement, whereupon tooth e catches the tail edge of the sheet and, as it advances the sheet in moving forward, causes the part n thereof which it directly holdsto follow its own (horizontal) plane of movement while the laterally adjacent parts 0 of the sheet ride up the inclined surfaces m. This produces a s'tretching of those parts of the sheet marked ,70 in Fig. 7, the result being the production. of a pe manent bend in the sheet, providing a re eases projection which will extend into the slot and afiord the teeth e a hold on the sheet as they successively come into position to engage andadvance it.

Referring now to Fig. 8 a gang of three dies is thereshown in which, according to a well known arrangement, the dies d, (2' 0 7* nism has in juxtaposition thereto, not they cuts formed by the rear dies on that stroke, but the cuts formed by the rear dies on some succeeding stroke (as here illustrated, the next succeeding stroke). It will be understood that the object in arranging the dies in this manner is of course to secure as closedisposition of the cuts produced .in the sheet (right hand of Fig. 8) as possible, thus reducing waste. p

In the known method of advancing the sheet to. the dies all the increments of advance are of equal length. Assume that at the start the advance edge of the sheet stands behind the dies d The first advance movement (equal to one die-diameter plus a safe margin for scrap) is only enough to bring the advance edge of the sheet just beyond the dies (1?. On the second advance movement, of the same extent as the first, the advance edge of the sheet bisects the die 03. @n the operation of the dies appertaining to such second. advance of the sheet "a halfor part-formed article is produced by die 0?. The same result occurs at the instance of the dies d when, in the next to the lastefl'ective str'okeof die d on the sheet, dies d descend with the tail edge of the sheet in position to bisect them. In this resides an element of annoyance and expense in that the partly formed articles not only have to be sorted from the full-formed prodnot, but the up-keep of the dies requires more attention than would. otherwise be the case, they going out of service much more quickly when applied to such work than to the forming of full-formed-product. cording to' our methodof advancing the sheet this difliculty is overcome and :fullformed product continually results" without increasing the waste. p

In Fig. 8, the first four of the advancepositions of the sheet are shown at the left of the gang of dies at, 0Z (Z and "the remaining six at the right thereof for facility of explanation. The starting position of the sheet 1 is indicated by its advance edge (solid line). The first advance-position of the sheets (designated T). brings its front edge almost to the rear of the die 01 and upon the die mechanism operating the first not two cuts 03's are formed by the dies 05, (i 2 30 the second advance-position (II), (representing an increment of less extent, equal to one die-diameter) brings the front ed e of the sheet just past the forward part 0 the die d, and upon the die mechanism operating cuts a, at, w are formed by the dies d, (Z (P; the third advance-position (III) represents an increment of the same extent as that of the second, the fourth as that of the third, and so on to and including the ninth. The cuts produced when the sheet is in the position III to IX are respectively designated w :0 01: tom, an, m. I The tenth advance-position brings the tail edge of the sheet past the forward part of die (l', representing an increment of at least the same extent as that of the first advance-position. Thus,the intermediate advances are each coextensive with the diameters of the cuts (which are equal), plus a safe margin between cuts for scrap, and, as any out formed by die d has its center coincident with a transverse line half-way between transverse parallel lines in which lie the centers of the two adjoining pairs of cuts formed by the dies d, the first and last increments of advance while the sheet is passing the dies each approximately equals one and one-half of an intermediate advance according to the present method. Therefore only full-formed product results, and yet all of the available part of the sheet is utilized. A further advantage of this method if that, whereas on no strokes do the dies have to work ata disadvantageon partly formed product-it requires one less stroke of the die mechanism to exhaust the sheet than it does by the old method. This may be accomplished by apparatus as shown in Fig. 1, as follows: The rack (2 has a throw (from A to B) which is suflicient (tooth e engaging the sheet) to carry the forward edge of the sheet on the first stroke up to the back of the die (l' (2'. 6. position I, Fig. 8), that is, so that after the sheet begins the process of passing the dies, it moves at least approximately one and onehalf die-diameter; its teeth which successively engage the sheet to effect the subsequent advances, are all spaced one die-diameter apart, plus a safe margin for scrap so that in the next eight strokes of the rack, correspondingto advanced positions II to IX, the sheet each time is advanced one diediameter, indicated by arrows C, D, E, F, G, H and I in Fig. 1; the last impulse imparted to the sheet is at least approximately equal to one and one-half a die-diameter, so that the sheet fully clears the dies, this be ing accomplished by an ejector actuated and operating as follows: The pivoted ejector q,

having the sheet-engaging dog (adapted to hook into a hole in the sheet-formed by one of the dies) has pivoted to it the rod 1' which, when a sheet is present under the pawl s, suitably connected to said rod, is

thereby held elevated out of, and when a sheet is absent under the pawl s is thereby allowed to fall into, the path of movement of a lug t on the rack actuating member g, the throw of the dog q,when actuated from ,being at least approximately one and one-half a die-diameter.

Having thus fully described our invention what we claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent is 1. In the art of separating two sheets by causing one of them to move planiform fashion While opposing the advance of the other, the method of establishing resistance to such advance consisting in diverting the forward edge of said other sheet out of its normal path of advance with the first sheet, while the latter is moving, substantially as described.

2. In the art of separating two sheets by causing one of them to move planiform fashion while opposing the advance of the other, the-method of establishing resistance to such advance consisting in divertin each lateral part of the forward edge .0 said other sheet out of its normal path of advance with the first sheet and maintaining the intermediate portion of said edge substantially in said path while the first sheet is moving. substantially as described.

3. The herein-described method consisting in! placing a sheet of ductile material flatwise on a suitable support and then effecting relative advancement of the sheet in wiping contact with the support and simultaneously stretching a limited part of the sheet through the plane thereof adjoining the support into a permanent bend, sub-- stantially as described.

4. The herein-described method consisting in opposing a suitable support to one face of a sheet of ductile material and then exerting pressure against a limited part of the opposite face of the sheet in a plane oblique to, the lane of the sheet and thereby efi'ecting re ative advancement of the sheet in wiping contact with the support and the stretching of the portion of the sheet includin said part, substantially as described.

5; T e method of removing one from another, planiform fashion, substantially flat sheets lying the one in substantially complete face to face contact. with the other which consists in bending a portion of one sheet which contacts with the other into permanently spaced relation with respect to the other and advancing one sheet planiform-fashion with relation to the other. engaging the first-named'sheet in the bentout'portion thereof in the advancing operation, substantially as described.

6. The method of removin one from another, planiform-fashion, substantially flat sheets lying the one in substantially complete face to face contact with the other ooeme which consists in bending a portion of one In testimony whereof we aflix our signasheet which'contgcts 1with the otl lller into perm tures in presence of two witnesses. manent space re ation wit respect to the othe and simultaneously advancing one .5 sheet planiform-fashion with relation to the r other, engaging the first-named heet in the "Witnesses: bent-out portion thereof in the advancing W. O. Homr operation, substantially as described. Lows 18. STUMJPF. 

